Thursday, January 9, 2003 
A recent forwarded newspaper article singing the ills of birdfeeders had us going for a while. If we had read more closely or paid more attention to the source (the Wall Street Journal), we may have more easily seen it in the light presented by Laura Erickson's Wall Street Journal Bird Feeding Article Distorts Truth.
[via RaptorMagic]
categories: memewatch x-syndicate
5:18:11 PM 
say what []
Reading a Buffy spoiler fan website today, I encountered an unfamiliar term: shipper. I know what slash fiction is (having stumbled on a book about k/s fanfic in the Princeton library a good 20 years ago), and I gather a shipper is someone who either likes to write slash fiction or who at least likes to read it.
See Carnal-Sins, for an example of a Spike/Buffy shipper site.
categories: x-syndicate
5:18:10 PM say what []
Fans of Buffy will probably get a kick out of The First's Journal. Apparently the First Evil was broken up enough about (SPOILER) the death of her ur-vampire pet Turok-Han that he/she/it created a memorial page for the creature. "Beloved minion. Devoted pet. He raved and grred. A lot."
categories: memewatch metablog
10:41:09 AM say what []
Peter Merholz speculates about the applicability of the Gawker model to other cities:
What would a Berkeley Gawker be? An Austin Gawker? Obviously, they'd take on the regional flava... I don't think Berkeleyites would be nearly as obsessed with Prada and J. Lo (thankfully).Much as I'd love to help put out an Oakland weblogmagazine as hip and linkworthy as the Gawk, I somehow doubt that this perennial underdog of a city could summon up the chutzpah, let alone the advertising dollars needed to make a go of it.
Peter speculates about a Berkeley or East Bay publication, and that might make more sense, but then isn't San Francisco the obvious central market for any venture of this type in this region? The lively comments on his post seem to favor more grassroots or network-y approaches, mentioning John Hiler's CityBlogs project along with other site-specific blog-aggregators.
categories: metablog
10:22:50 AM say what []
